[quote=“mr_boogie”]Hey, to get fleeced by Chinese you can just stay in Europe, and go to a Chinese Restaurant or Chinese Shop… you are fleeced the moment you get inside the store… (in only one weekend, the Portuguese Police closed more than 300 Chinese restaurants around Portugal because none of them complied minimally with the hygiene standards, most reused not eaten food from other customers and didn’t use the ingredients listed in the dish (they would just put fancy ingredient names and then use cheap ones)).
As for my trips to China, luckily I always go with local suppliers who invite me (and pay the bills). A friend of mine got fleeced by the KTV girl he took to the room, who asked him money to buy a cellphone, so she could call him the next day to meet… 2K RMB… she never called back, and guess she went laughing to the bank…[/quote]
You have solved a conundrum for me. I was recently there on business and could not find a single Chinese restaurant, only a couple of generic Asian restaurants…I was thinking wow, somebody could make millions here, now I know why!
[quote=“zyzzx”]Head out to the backwoods of China and you get LOTS of pointing, staring, jaws dropping… On one trip there were two of us, and without fail, the first thing that came out every person who saw us was “liang ge laowai!!!” nudge the friend, point at us.[/quote] Oh hell, that happens all the time in Taipei… Perhaps not the long, uninterrupted staring stuff with the grim faced look so much but plenty of whispering, nudging, pointing…
[quote=“Deuce Dropper”]I wonder what the Green blowhards think of this? 3000 daily visitors, that is a ton of extra money being pumped into the local economy (the mo-ji factories of Hualian are working overtime, kiddies :discodance: ).[/quote] As I recall, the Green blowhards didn’t have any problem with mainland tourists coming over the spend money here - everyone is all for that. It was more a question of what the actual economic impact would be, and also whether the gov was promoting Taiwan tourism to the rest of the world with equal enthusiasm.
Problem is that they are spending their money on only “certain” places, as the big bundle, like staying and hotel etc. is restricted to a few “chosen”. Plus, this gives “savvy” authorized businesses teh temptation to “subcontract” their services -which has already been punsihed as it is not according to preasigned contracts.
Ther has been already one incident where the security checks were left aside, and a group entered without visa. Again, it was punished, but way after the fact.
True, there can be cracks in the system as it is new, but so far, no widespread benefits can be seen.
Again, how sustainable can it be to focus on a single market? How effective is a tourism system that cannot handle diffenet languages, at least?
Well this is the thing that has been both helping and hindering Taiwan’s development over the past 10 years. Instead of advancing their systems they just used their experience in Taiwan’s development to offer the same packages to Chinese or to use China’s environment for low cost business operations.
It’s all about the quick money…
Heck, that’s downright tame. I’ve gotten much worse, even in “enlightened” areas like the U.S. In New York a few months back my wife was buying fake shoes in this little store in Chinatown and the guy starts asking her if the guizi wants anything. What great customer service!
Heck, that’s downright tame. I’ve gotten much worse, even in “enlightened” areas like the U.S. In New York a few months back my wife was buying fake shoes in this little store in Chinatown and the guy starts asking her if the guizi wants anything. What great customer service![/quote] Reminds me of an old, old commercial for Salem cigarettes, which were supposed to be ‘country fresh’ (cough, cough,…). Their slogan went, “You can take Salem out of the country but - you can’t take the country out of Salem”.
[quote=“ac_dropout”]You must be pretty twisted to try and make a political statement out of a construction accident, where there’s a lost of life.
Any wonder people in Taiwan are beginning find a distaste for Green Sinophobic arguments.
[/quote]
Oh, where is the political statement there?
It was actually my father in law who made the comment, and he as blue as they come. He just said that there is nothing happening by coincidence, so the God of the Land (the Taiwanese one, because the Chinese has been burned in the CR) must be unhappy. And it is either with the City Governemnt or with the tourists…
So everytime a TI supporter dies, it’s God’s way of telling people he is not happy with TI…
Everytime a WGR dies in Taiwan, it’s God’s way of telling people he is not happy with WGR in Taiwan…
[quote=“ac_dropout”]So everytime a TI supporter dies, it’s God’s way of telling people he is not happy with TI…
Everytime a WGR dies in Taiwan, it’s God’s way of telling people he is not happy with WGR in Taiwan…
It’s a pretty silly theory you have there.
:roflmao:[/quote]
No, I’m just sharing you what a very elder person and very religious person told me. It is about odds… what are the odds of a crane going down exactly on the moment a bus with Chinese tourists passes by? Act of god or conspiracy?
Let me think, 101 is the leading attraction for Chinese tourists coming to Taiwan, a crane falls in the middle of the day onto the street around 101, hits a bus and kills some people inside… and the ‘fate’ bit is?
The honcho is right. The fact is lots of mainlander tourists near 101 so it stands to reason that the likelihood of a mainlander getting smashed is higher. Now if it was in Tainan, the argument would lean more in your direction.
Guys, there are a couple hundred Chinese visiting 101 every day. So yes the odds are astronomical (though I wouldn’t call it fate). If cranes fell every hour you might have a point.
[quote=“mr_boogie”][quote=“ac_dropout”]So everytime a TI supporter dies, it’s God’s way of telling people he is not happy with TI…
Everytime a WGR dies in Taiwan, it’s God’s way of telling people he is not happy with WGR in Taiwan…
It’s a pretty silly theory you have there.
:roflmao:[/quote]
No, I’m just sharing you what a very elder person and very religious person told me. It is about odds… what are the odds of a crane going down exactly on the moment a bus with Chinese tourists passes by? Act of god or conspiracy?[/quote]
Hmmm…I see…a non-accurary describe the high level mathematical science calculating proprobability of mortality on a construction site…attributes it to the God factor and conspiracy.
I went there every lunchtime for four years and a crane never fell on my head.
Seriously, what a waste. What happened with the crane? Weren’t lessons learned and safeguards but in place? There wasn’t even a earthquake this time. Idiots. I hope they throw the book at them.
[quote=“ac_dropout”]You must be pretty twisted to try and make a political statement out of a construction accident, where there’s a lost of life. [/quote] I totally agree… BUT, weren’t YOU the one who suggested that Jason Hu’s car accident was masterminded by the ‘Greens’?
[quote=“Buttercup”]I went there every lunchtime for four years and a crane never fell on my head.
Seriously, what a waste. What happened with the crane? Weren’t lessons learned and safeguards but in place? There wasn’t even a earthquake this time. Idiots. I hope they throw the book at them.[/quote]
Yep. A company with a history of cutting corners is still allowed to carry on unsupervised. Same comapny. No lessons learned. Except that the Labor Unit of Taipei City government quickly shook itself off the matter, saying they had no business tehre as no workers had been injured in the incident. Sigh
I do not think ther eis a “political” component in the accident, as much as there is a fate that intervieved so that it wouldn’t be even worse. Imagine if the crane had fallen in the middle of the bus, or over several buses… With that level of ineptitude, all is possible. That is a major peril, here augmented by repetitive inexcusable, unpunished behavior.
What is political is the lack of respect given to the Mainland tourists, and I do not mean by the greens. A few nasty stares and insults are nothing comapred to running away with their hard earned money -agencies that leave them stranded- or jeopardizing their safety, especially in overcrowded conditions. In general, they are given a hasty, “ride a horse overlooking the flowers” tour. The agencies are hand picked, and motivation is political loyalty, not efficiency nor capacity. The tourists are being used for show.
50 tour buses parked in the Palace Museum, while 20 more wait for parking space. People lining up 20 minutes to see the cabbage. One earthquake/fire in an overcapacity building.
How many of you bet the company couldn’t -even if they had tried- close the road when they were moving the crane because that would slow the movement of tourists?
